Tribute to Arcade Games: A Declining Industry

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The arcade industry saw its rise in the 1980s-1990s with the titles such as Battle City, Galaxian, Galaga, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Super Mario Brothers among many others. The 1990s was at the peak of arcade games with the release of family home computer consoles. It was also the decade where famous game developers like SEGA, Atari, Konami, SNK, Capcom,  and Namco released several fighting games, light-gun rail shooters, side-scroller shooters, racing games, and beat 'em ups. These included Virtua Cop, The House of the Dead, Metal Slug, Tekken, Marvel vs. Capcom, Marvel vs. Street Fighter, Time Crisis, Fighting Bujutsu, Crypt Killer, Evil Night, and Jurassic Park. At this time of the gaming industry, players at the arcade would compete for the highest score. One would feel like a king once they defeated the final boss. While arcade games continued being manufactured into the 2000s, it was slowly declining due to the emergence of home consoles such as the PlayStation 2 and 3, GameCube, Xbox, and Xbox 360. By the 2010s, the industry was further facing a decline due to the development of next generation consoles such as the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One.

Being born in 1996 in the transitions from the 90s to the 2000s, I was still able to play some of the classic arcades games in my local Timezone located in Ayala Center Cebu. Most of the games I played were light-gun rail shooters. My favorite ones were The House of the Dead (1-4), The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Henry Explorers (also known as Crypt Killer), Hell Night (Evil Night), Time Crisis (1-4), Virtua Cop, and Ninja Assault. From my elementary days, my friends and I would usually spend a lot of time playing these games and having fun in general. When I first completed The Lost World: Jurassic Park in the summer of 2005, I felt like a king in the arcade. Those were the days that made a part of my childhood. I recall one event our school only had half-day of class since the entire school was to watch an environmental-theme film festival in Ayala Center Cebu. That was on September 8, 2008 and yes I recall it clearly despite being 6th Grader that time (12 years old). The cinema was right across the Timezone arcade (see picture above). While waiting for the movie to start, most of the students played in Timezone to kill time. Most played Tekken 6 since it was the newest release at that time. The different year levels from 6th Graders to 4th Year High School were challenging the winners. Since there was only one Tekken 6 cabinet as there were multiple students waiting in line, others played different games like The House of the Dead 2, Virtua Cop, Time Crisis 4, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Hell Night, and Silent Scope. Those were one of the best moments in my elementary life since we got a half-day off from school and everyone put aside their differences to play in Timezone. A rare moment indeed. That was the last year I got to play Hell Night before the cabinet broke in 2009 and decommissioned in 2010.

As the 2010s decade entered, most of the arcade games from the 1990s were decommissioned as they reached the end of their lifespan in addition to the lack of spare parts and company support. In the Timezone that I played during most of my elementary days, most of the games I played were decommissioned. Henry Explorers was decommissioned in early 2012, followed by The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 2013, Silent Scope in 2014, Virtua Cop and Silent Hill: The Arcade in 2015, Big Buck Hunter Safari in 2016-17, the first The House of the Dead in August 2017, Ninja Assault in early 2018, and one The House of the Dead 2 cabinet in May 2018. Most of the games are now placed with the arcade versions of mobile redemption games while the rail shooters have been mainly dominated with Raw Thrills turret games like Jurassic Park: The Arcade (2015) and The Walking Dead: The Arcade. I have personally seen Timezone become a shell of its former self. I don't personally blame them though, as the older machines tend to break down after almost two decades of use. I find it sad though that it would never be the same again.

In my free time, I hunt for obscure arcade games on YouTube. Around May-June 2012, the first available walkthrough of Evil Night taking the Course C was posted by user hotd34me. It brought so much memories of the game I played before in Timezone. It was a rare shooter being three players with the first and third players having handguns while the second player has a powerful shotgun. It would be another five years, on April 2017, when another walkthrough of this obscure shooter would be posted courtesy of user GleamzinGuy (@multibrawlr of Discord.). It included the Course A and B routes, as well as the Good Ending and Name Entry. I immediately contacted the uploader and from there, I made an unofficial fanpage for the game on FaceBook. In July 2017, the Bad Ending was posted. The obscurity of this game was removed. Aside from arcade games, I got interested with pinball thanks to him. I played my first pinball on September 2018.






We then moved on to trying to promote Total Vice, another game that used the Konami M2 3DO system. Unlike Evil Night, there were no footage of Total Vice except a short cameo in the 2003 Eddy Murphy comedy Showtime. Despite that, it was difficult to find a working PCB for Total Vice. I was able to play Total Vice back then in May 2009. One cabinet was located in World of Fun in Island City Mall, Tagbilaran City, Bohol. In April 2018, I followed @ChicagoGameCollector on Instagram (Video Game Esoterica on YouTube). We maintained communication as he managed to purchase a PCB for Total Vice and Evil Night. He promised to upload a 1080p walkthrough of the arcade games via capture card.

On September 2018, I created a Discord Chat for the Konami M2 3DO, having invited several users including hotd34me. We share our insights and memories of the arcade games we used to play as well as hardware and maintenance of the PCB. Finally, the first Total Vice walkthrough was posted on November 2018, followed by an HD Evil Night walkthrough in the following weeks. By December 2018, there are current attempts to emulate the Konami M2 games. Both games are getting significant attention in current times, along with Battle Tryst, Heat of Eleven and Tobe! Polystars. Joining Discord has been a positive experience since I get to talk to several arcade players around the world, sharing insights and memorable experiences.

Now that I am 22 years old, I am looking back at the memories made in playing arcade games, As we approach the 2020s, it is very likely most of these games would not be in existence anymore in the form of arcade cabinets. Thankfully, MAME exists so that these games would live on in the PC via emulation.
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